A cop-opera meme (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

You don't have to be that old.  20 years ago, I used to run around with a guy who drove a Jeep Grand Wagoneer (mid- to large SUV).  We'd be tooling along, and he'd see a pedestrian on the side of the road.  As we approached, he'd downshift and back off the gas, and it would backfire.  The hope was that the pedestrian would jump.

He stopped doing it after the time the backfire blew off his muffler/catalytic converter assembly, and he had to pick it up off the street and load it into the back.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Wilson Gray
> Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 3:56 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: A cop-opera meme
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------
> -
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      A cop-opera meme
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>
> A. "Did [….] hear the shot?"
> B. "Yes. But […] thought it was a backfire!"
>
>
> What is up with this? Who under the age of sixty could possibly even
> know what a "backfire" is, other than a way of dealing with forest
> fires, let alone have heard backfires often enough to mistake a
> gunshot for a backfire. I can remember when hearing backfires - and
> blowouts - was a *very* common, several-times-a-day experience. Back
> in the '40's.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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